What really annoyed Farrell was that, while Ireland had been leading 40-0 at the time Italy started to find gaps in his carefully developed system, his players had slackened off, checked out from their defensive duties.

As Tommaso Allan, Edoardo Gori, and Matteo Minozzi crossed the whitewash between the 55th and 74th minutes, all the home defence coach could see from the men in green was average and, the Englishman said, “average is unacceptable”.

All of which made for quite a sobering post-game review when Joe Schmidt’s squad reconvened last week for a short training camp in Athlone. No hairdryer treatment, Farrell insisted, just candid.

“No, no it is not the wrath at all, it is honesty. If I am not being honest with any player then I am doing them a disservice and that’s... honesty to me is super-positive, whether you think it is negative or not or positive or not, because it means I care about the progress, and, if something is not up to scratch and not good enough, you’d be honest about that.

“I started the review of the meeting with the four tries we scored through the pressure from our defence, so it’s not all bad. It’s not all bad. The last quarter is an example for me to say what’s acceptable and what’s not. Having said that, I think it puts us in a pretty good place moving towards this weekend.”

Farrell had been more than satisfied with Ireland’s performance for the first 60 minutes of the contest against Italy but, he added: “The last quarter wasn’t acceptable because average is not acceptable in this environment.

“We need to be more ruthless than that and learn to play, even when the scoreboard is in our favour, to be ruthless. The players know that, there are some young lads who haven’t got vast amounts of experience and might have been getting carried away with themselves a little bit, but to knock off — you can talk about any technicality you want — but to have a lack of intent in that last quarter was not acceptable.”

Careful to stress that he had been critical of players both junior and senior in terms of experience, Farrell warned that the visit of a Wales side coached by his British & Irish Lions boss Warren Gatland would not allow a repeat of that final quarter against the Italians.

The Azzurri’s try-scoring spree coincided with the 44th-minute loss through injury of defensive leader Robbie Henshaw, whose absence with a season-ending shoulder injury will mean possibly fielding an Irish midfield against the Welsh of Bundee Aki and Chris Farrell, whose combined Test experience totals just six caps.

Farrell, nevertheless, backed those set to be named in the Ireland team announced tomorrow to compensate for the shortfall in appearances.

“The competition gets a whole lot tougher from here on in, and we will at the same time,” he said.

“Robbie has grown massively over the last 18 months, two years, as far as leadership is concerned. He has been not just ‘do as I do’, but also leading within his vocabulary, his communication on the field etc, so he has been super, but the next thing is we expect whoever it is to fit in to fit in and do the same job. That is how you make each other feel. That’s not an excuse for us at all. As I say, we are a squad and we will learn and get better from that.”

Better this Saturday? Farrell was asked.

“100%,” came the reply.

The defence coach yesterday declared second row James Ryan fully fit, having sat out the Italian win, while tighthead prop Tadhg Furlong and lock Iain Henderson were not quite there yet, but would be given until tonight’s scheduled selection meeting to prove their readiness to play.

“It can’t be a risk, he has to be fully fit,” Farrell said of Furlong. “He is hitting those targets, those markers to progress, to say ‘there is the line, he is fully fit’.

“It is just a matter of time. He is going through a process, he is hitting those markers.”